


The Moon in The Bureau Mirror

by aderyn



Series: Compounds or Stars [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221b, Gen, Post Reichenbach, messages from invisible sources
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:27:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s dreamed Sherlock back at their breakfast table, where they might catch up...</p>
<p>I don’t like the present, he thinks.</p>
<p>Well it will be the past soon enough, John. Do be patient."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moon in The Bureau Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from Elizabeth Bishop’s “Insomnia”; the whole thing is in the end notes!

 

_I haven’t been an ideal correspondent_ , Sherlock says.

The fuck, says John. He’s dreamed Sherlock back at their breakfast table, where they might catch up, the way time seemed to catch up with itself on his (former) blog, the tale and the conversation happening at once in the present, the future, the past. 

_I don’t like the present_ , he thinks.

_Well it will be the past soon enough, John. Do be patient._

***

Patience is his strong suit, but not this time. 

_And what have we got up to this time_ , Sherlock says, his fingernails like half-moons on John’ s sleeve, John’s like half-moons on the keyboard.

We don’t get up anymore; you’re dead, John says.

_Dull_ , says Sherlock, _but say that again._

***

He says it again, when the streetlight pools on his bed.

The day-night continuum is transposed.  At night, he thinks, you don’t speak to me and I wonder what it all meant, and in daylight I hate that I wonder what it meant, because that means it’s set (as the moon does, or the sun; it wouldn’t make a difference which to you); it’s daylight and done.

You’ve been gone too long. I’m trying to dream here, and you’re on the side of a thoroughfare, somewhere, arm out for a cab, fingers on keys,not beaming your messages back.

**Author's Note:**

> Insomnia
> 
> The moon in the bureau mirror  
> looks out a million miles  
> (and perhaps with pride, at herself,  
> but she never, never smiles)  
> far and away beyond sleep, or  
> perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.
> 
> By the Universe deserted,  
> she'd tell it to go to hell,  
> and she'd find a body of water,  
> or a mirror, on which to dwell.  
> So wrap up care in a cobweb  
> and drop it down the well
> 
> into that world inverted  
> where left is always right,  
> where the shadows are really the body,  
> where we stay awake all night,  
> where the heavens are shallow as the sea  
> is now deep, and you love me. --Elizabeth Bishop


End file.
